Stalking Is Love

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Say you have a Stalker with a Crush. He relentlessly pursues his love interest, watching her as she sleeps, resorting to superfluous and often very disturbing lengths to protect her if he feels the need. She's probably going to be creeped out, right?

Most characters of this type are intended to be sympathetic; the lengths the fella goes to is supposed to show just how much he loves his beloved (or she hers — this can happen to characters of any gender). But characters like this can be very unnerving to readers and audiences who realize just how far things have gone.

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There is an unfortunate Double Standard common in the depiction of this trope. Stalker type behavior in a man can make him a romantic hero but the same behavior will almost always make a woman dangerous or pathetic. Interestingly, the Stalker with a Crush trope features an exactly opposite Double Standard.

Some more forgiving depictions of this trope rely on the stalker simply being too shy to approach the object of his or her affections directly, and is otherwise harmless.

In Katekyō Hitman Reborn!, although Tsuna is sort of creeped out by Gokudera's Stalker with a Crush tendencies, the show depicts him as being a very loyal and wonderful friend, writing off his desire to kill off anyone who gets close to Tsuna as being comedy.

Sōsuke is assigned a mission in which he must follow Kaname around and protect her from terrorists, all the while not letting her know. Although his actions are way overboard by any normal standards and could easily be constructed as stalking, Kaname seems to view it with a mixture of curiosity, annoyance, attraction, and a bit of amusement. The reasons are probably a mix of the factors that Sōsuke's actions are extremelyoutlandish even by stalking standards, he appears to have as much grasp of romance and sexuality as her hamster, and of course that he is extremely attractive. This disappears when she finds Sōsuke on her balcony with a pair of her panties in his hand (which, in fact, were snatched back from Shinji, who was the one trying to steal it because some bullies put him up to it), at which point she attempts to beat him to death with a baseball bat and completely refuses to trust or talk to him until he explains the truth behind his actions. Once Kaname is in on the whole secret and can relate to Sōsuke better through an understanding of his background, it's the beginning of a friendship that develops into love.

Leonard, a Pretty Boy antagonist, seems to believe this trope justifies his pushy advances towards Kaname, but this is treated very differently from how Sōsuke acted. Sōsuke never had any ulterior motives besides protecting Kaname to begin with, and he spent a long time learning from Kaname how to behave properly in society and respect her feelings. That she started to fall in love with Sōsuke — and he with her — is because they truly value each other as people, whereas Leonard acts like he's entitled to have her as his conquest just because he's ostensibly more suave. He only succeeds in getting Kaname to hate his guts, especially since he stole her first kiss, which she wished she had given to Sōsuke.

Tona-Gura!: Yuuji Kagura towards Kazuki Arisaka. His efforts are clumsy, and easily turned away, and he does not insist on being and knowing her entire existence. Despite being mostly a Chivalrous Pervert. Repeated beatings at her hands and the bullets of his little sister's guns do not seem capable of dissuading him from grabbing at her and raising her skirt, or trying to bear-hug her in a state of undress.

Played with the usual amount of taste and seriousness (that is, none at all) in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, where Matoi and Kafuka certainly believe this. Of course, Nozomu kindly informs her that mutual suicide is true love. And then unfortunately informs her that he'd be happy to kill himself with her at any time, so she took up stalking him while her previous stalking victim started stalking her.

Despite many of the girls in the class believing this, they are off-put by an expression by a (clearly perverted and weird) Buddhist Monk of this philosophy in one episode. The episode deals with different things in life being "previews" for later things, and the Monk claims that standing outside of your beloved's home is a preview for a date. His audience protests that this is just stalking.

Arguably, the series (if only for Rule of Funny) shows the philosophy validated. After a while, Itoshki seems completely used to Matoi following him everywhere, even into the bathroom, and is quite comfortable in one episode with her living in his home, and is also comfortable with Kiri Komori living in his closet, and she also followed him into the bathroom at least once.

Then again, it's pretty clear that none of these people, Nozomu included, could be considered even remotely well-adjusted.

In Ask Dr. Rin!, this is Meirin, full stop. Maybe justified by the fact that she and Asuka are childhood friends, but that angle just makes it look even more awkward.

Zetsuai1989 is about a male singer named Kouji who's childhood crush on a male soccer star named Izumi that he fell for as a kid, leads to assorted sexual harassment when the two meet in person years later. The series romanticizes stalking and rewards the attacker in the end when the victim becomes comfortable with his stalker and stops running away.

Spoofed in Durarara!! when Anri (jokingly) implies that she's been stalking Mikado. Upon hearing this, Mikado's brain starts zig-zagging the hell out of this trope (complete with Mikado's Inner Puppet Theater) like only a hormonal teenager can before Anri finally tells him she was kidding

Mikado: Oh, crap! Is she a stalker? Wait. If she's cute it's okay, rigNo, this is bad. It might go like... She might stab me! Or set my house on fire! And what if she takes my parents hostage?... But, maybe she has a nice personality. Then it would be okay, right?... Wait. If she did, she wouldn't be stalking me!

Shuichi from Gravitation chases Yuki constantly, despite being rejected, verbally abused, and often being called a little brat. They eventually end up together.

In Koharu No Hibi while Akira is freaked out by Koharu's Stalker with a Crush tendencies he still eventually ends up dating her because as he said he can't leave her alone.

Arima's dark side in Kare Kano. Any time that he comes onto the screen, you just know Arima is seconds away from shattering. This is made worse because to the outside world, he appears to be a put together, genius with his only match being Yukino, his girlfriend. It's scary to slowly see his thoughts morph from wanting to be with Yukino, to wanting to isolate her from everyone and keep her just for himself. His fighting with these thoughts proves that Arima is a good guy, but him imagining tying Yukino in chains does not bode well for their relationship. This is a rare case of Stalker with a Crush in which not only is the stalker in a committed relationship with his crush, but he is also portrayed as so sympathetic that you just want to save him from himself.

Played all over the place in A Certain Magical Index. Mikoto is being stalked by the grandson of her school's dean. While he's pretty attractive, she still finds him creepy and she can't just zap him because of his status, so she enlists Toma to pretend to be her boyfriend long enough to throw him off. This doesn't work—because he's actually a spy sent to keep an eye on Toma's growing list of powerful True Companions, specifically Mikoto. Except that he really is in love with her, and volunteered for the mission so that they wouldn't send someone else, who wouldn't have a problem killing her if she got difficult (and "difficult" is a pretty good way of summarizing Mikoto).

In flashbacks, Naruto's father Minato is shown stalking Naruto's mother Kushina. He watches over her but doesn't actually step in when she gets bullied because he has faith that she can take care of herself. The one time she's outmatched, when she's kidnapped by enemy shinobi from another village, he's there to rescue her and this causes her to fall in love with him.

Finally, in the Distant Finale to the series, Naruto and Hinata's son Boruto is shown being stalked by Sasuke and Sakura's daughter Sarada.

Sho Kano in Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple followed Miu around, watching her from high places for nearly the entire DoD story arc due to an obsession with her based on her having similar "wings" to his.

Tokyo Ghoul does a variation. While Torso's actions towards his "lovers" are depicted as being very disturbing, Torso thinks what he's doing isn't wrong. Sasaki theorizes that Torso removes the legs of his victims so they won't "leave". Once he becomes obsessed with Mutsuki, he becomes obsessed with following him and making him his, which especially escalates after Mutsuki responds to his affections in the negative leading to him to cut off his limbs to keep him from leaving. A volume 4 diary entry reveals that he believes they share a mysterious connection, and this "spark" of desire will be his salvation. He just believes they need to have a long, private talk.....then Mutsuki will understand their destined bond, and return his love. After he cuts off Mutsuki's legs and arms he declares he will forcibly marry him while having him dressed up in a white dress and putting a wedding ring on his cut-off hand. He then stands in front of him shirtless while breathing deeply which heavily implies Attempted Rape. Usually, his past "lovers" rejection of him drives him to extreme violence to punish them including destroying their faces. Also, in chapter 73 of re: Torso brings Mutsuki a flower crown, but gets angry when Mutsuki glares at him and won't accept his compliments. He beats Mutsuki violently while screaming insults. He later has them on a makeshift bed and says he only beats Mutsuki because of how deep his love for him is. He also gets a sad backstory and Mutsuki finds himself sympathizing with Torso after hearing it despite how he abused him. Despite Torso's gruesome end at Mutsuki's hands they are still shipped together in the 2016 calendar.

Tsukiyama is depicted as Kaneki's Stalker with a Crush in a Ho Yay way radiating fanservice and is portrayed very sympathetically following him being rejected by Kaneki and falling into an Angst Coma after believing him to be dead.

Mika in Seraph of the End has Ho Yay with Yuu and is depicted as being a very loyal and caring friend. He also has stalker tendencies towards Yuu in the Serapuchi comic and he's portrayed sympathetically with many fans hoping they get together.

Despite Mahiru being a Yandere stalker towards Guren and him realizing he's walking down a dangerous road by having anything to do with her he still loves her and they have sex in the novels.

Air Gear: Akito's relationship with Ikki. For example, Akito once kissed Ikki full on the mouth and often tries to kiss, bathe, and sleep next to or with Ikki, and constantly has No Sense of Personal Space around him. And after "rescuing" Akito, Ikki lets him stay at his house, and the only thing in any of this he seems to have a problem with is Akito's tendency to kiss him. Akito's also apparently fond of crossdressing and is even shown to have a dark side of his own, becoming jealous to the point of scaring Kururu when she gets too close to Ikki.

Comic Books

One time while watching Siryn sleep, Deadpool laments that what he's doing used to be considered romantic, but now it's called "stalking" and generally considered "Trespass". But that's Deadpool.

Similarly Black Cat stalking Spider-Man isnt presented as creepy. At one point she even shows Spidey the Stalker Shrine she made for him and while a little freaked out, he still pursues a relationship with her.

In Deep Gravity, it's specifically averted. Paxon was sufficiently determined that his relationship with Michelle ought to have worked that he signed on to a deep-space expedition to a remote, dangerous planet just to follow her, believing that she could be made to see reason. Michelle certainly doesn't see it as romantic  but neither does he because, by the time the reunion he set in motion actually occurs, he's fully aware that it was the wrong thing to do.

Paxon: It's three years on this crossing if you don't spend it asleep. That's a lot of time to reflect on your mistakes. I thought I was being romantic when I left Earth, but it didn't take me long to figure out that coming to Poseidon was a stalker move. That's not how I want you to think of me. You said it was over. That should mean it's over.

Comic Strips

For Better or for Worse: Anthony was introduced as Liz's secret admirer, following her around watching her every move while she was oblivious. It took her friend finally pointing him out for her to even notice him, after which they dated for a while, with nothing said against his questionable behavior. Of course, that was child's play to the turns the relationship took years later. (Ex: him continuing to stalk her even after he married someone else.) Literally child's play- Anthony and Elizabeth were children when they met, so the behavior was less "questionable" and more "shy nerdy little boy with his first crush."

Zits: One arc had Jeremy stealing his parents' car in the middle of the night so he could repeatedly drive by the house of a girl he was interested in, an act which got him arrested. When Connie chewed him out over it, asking what he thought he was doing, Jeremy described it as a "desperate romantic gesture". Connie then told Walt to take over lecturing him, as she almost forgave him.

Fan Works

In the Twilight fan fictionThe (Not So) Short Second Life of Bree Tanner the main character, Bree, is the object of some restraining order-worthy affection from Alec, though — unlike Bella with Edward — she's not nearly as charmed by the creepily felonious antics or isn't shy about mentioning it.

In Code Geass: Mao of the Deliverance, Mao travels hundreds of miles to find C.C. again while listening to her voice constantly on his headphones. She actually recorded this for him, however, and he is really just trying to save her life (albeit against her wishes).

Most (but not all) Glee fanfics that involve Kurt/Dave Karofsky will have this trope.

The My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic fanfic The Games We Play is about one of Rainbow Dash's friends having a crush on her and using the Mare Do Well costume as a means to disguise their identity and get close to her without risking their friendship. Except "get close to her" pretty much ends up meaning "stalk and sexually harass her". Zigzagged in that Dash is very unhappy with this, but starts to reciprocate, and ends up feeling pretty damn confused.

In If Bella Were Sane, Edward stalks Bella and tries to trick her into marrying him while she's drunk because he's in love with her. Unlike the Bella of the Twilight books, the fanfiction has her creeped out and punch him over it. The last chapter, in which Bella's very loopy, very Mormon Aunt Stephenie comes to visit from Arizona makes a huge Take That! at the trope.

I told her everything, sipping tea in my pajamas. I left out the rude words and stuff and most of my freakoutslike I said, really Mormonbut she got the whole story. She said it was almost sort of romantic. Like I said, sort of loopy.

In the Facing the Future Series, Maddie once told Jazz that Jack would camp out on her family's yard when they were away just so he could see her when she got back. While Jack and Maddie thought it was romantic, Jazz thought that it was nothing to be proud of.

Anna: Because you stalk me outside my studio. Dan: I don't stalk, I lurk, and when I'm not there you look for me. Anna: How would you know I look for you if you're not there? Dan: Because I am there, lurking from a distance.

We're introduced to Ricky in American Beauty when he's following Jane around with a video camera, filming her. Funnily enough, she asks him to stop filming her and he puts the camera away, saying okay.

In Bram Stoker's Dracula the titular count stalking Mina through London is put under a sympathetic light instead of being creepy like it would be in any other context, since shes the reincarnation of his dead wife. Though even Mina herself is clearly bothered by it and only relents to his presence when Dracula hypnotises her.

In Killing Jessica Stein, Jessica ends up with Josh who quite obsessively went through her personal files (including letters) at work. Apparently, because he was motivated by jealousy from their past relationship, this is fine.

Scott falls in love with roller-skating, punk-haired Ramona Flowers at first sight, across a public space. He stalks her in a way thats apparently meant to be adorable... To be fair, it's lampshaded right off the bat ("And then... he stalked her...") and played for laughs. She agrees to go out with him the next time they speak and is never really aware of his previous stalking, but neither does she seem to like him any more than "meh, he's a nice guy."

From what is shown of her various exes, she also has a tendency to date psychotic people. This includes Gideon, who creates The League of Evil Exes to keep her from dating anyone else and return to him, brainwashes her into being with him again, and hits and shove her down some steps in a decidedly non-comedic way. Compared to that, a guy who shyly follows her around at a party would be normal.

The obvious Twilight rip-off Blood Red Moon features this, with the male lead Victor. However, he does it... poorly. As Obscurus Lupa put it in her review:

"At least Edward Cullen stood more than six feet away when he was stalking someone."

In Untamed Heart, Adam and Caroline's relationship really begins because he rescues her from attackers while stalking her. He also enters her room while she's sleeping which he somehow pulls off without her calling the police.

Strongly represented in Crazy Stupid Love in the storyline of the son. Even to the point where the object of his desire is sending him messages to stop because he's making her uncomfortable. It's still presented as romantic, though.

A blatant example in Major League, Jake stalks his crush several times after Willy's character says to follow her home (Since he didn't know where she lived) and she seems to take this all with just a shrug of her shoulders despite telling him it's over several times. They end up together at the end of the film.

In Disturbia, Kale watches Ashley from his bedroom, though rarely for things like undressing. He later tells her about all the little personal quirks and hobbies he knows about her from his spying, to prove that he understands her. They kiss right after this. Granted she does tell him that it's either "the creepiest or the most romantic thing [she] ever heard".

Gary, the eponymous character in The Last American Virgin stalks Karen by leering at her at the ice cream parlor, by letting the air out of her bike's tires so he can give her a ride to school, following her around and watching her have sex with Rick.

In Superman Returns the Man of Steel spends some spying on Lois at her house after finding out she's married now.

Peter's love interest Gwen Stacy doesn't have much of a problem with finding out she graces the background of his computer, or him attending a tour of hers that he clearly didn't sign up fornote he didn't sign up for the tour for her sake, or him repeatedly visiting her room via the window rather than by the doornote he explains it as being scared of the doorman the first time and by the second she knows he's Spidey. May be lampshaded by showing she owns several Twilight books.

Even more so in the sequel The Amazing Spider Man 2, where Peter takes to watching Gwen from rooftops after they break up. We get this exchange:

Gwen: Have you been following me? Gwen: How often? Peter: Just once a day. Sometimes... Sometimes more.

In P2, Thomas expects Angela to be attracted to him even after he kidnaps her, chases her through the parking lot, kills two of her coworkers, locks her in the trunk of a car, and sics his dog on her.

Played for laughs in There's Something About Mary, in which the title character has several men who are stalking her and plotting to win her love. It's actually portrayed as creepy, especially from the supporting "suitors", but even main character Ted realizes what he's been doing is not OK and has an I Want My Beloved to Be Happy moment and is willing to walk away.

Ripcord's amorous designs on Scarlett tend to come off as being this, despite most likely being meant to be charmingly goofy.

Destro has this sort of relationship with the Baroness. Unlike traditional versions of the romance where it's entirely consensual, he seems very interested in the current one despite her showing only marginal interest in return. He even has her husband killed for touching her. However, he also knows she's mind-controlled.

In Indecent Proposal, Gage's behavior towards Diana following their one-night stand, something that was contractually agreed on to be one night and nothing more. He shows up at both of her workplaces (she's a realtor who teaches ESL part-time) uninvited and unannounced and otherwise manipulates situations in order to bring her close to him, essentially forcing her into a relationship. At one point, incensed at his conduct, she shows up at his office to tell him off, and here the Double Standard kicks in full force — whereas his behavior was portrayed as adorable and playful even though she clearly found it upsetting, hers is made out to be alarming and disruptive even though she has every right to be angry with him. But sure enough, she gradually softens towards him and they end up together for a good portion of the movie.

Hannibal turns the title character into a Stalker with a Crush for Clarice Starling. While in ''The Silence of the Lambs, he simply seems to enjoy being creepy for creepiness' sake, the sequel turns it into a kind of weird romantic love for Clarice Starling, with him sneaking into her house and watching her sleep (while touching her face and hair). In a deleted scene, he breaks into her car and licks the steering wheel to get the taste of her. Not to mention the part where she's talking to him on a cell phone trying to find him, and it turns out he was behind her touching her hair. The weird thing is that it's actually meant to be romantic.

Notorious Vanilla Ice star vehicle, Cool as Ice sees Badass Biker Johnny Van Owen playing this trope jaw-droppingly straight. He obsessively pursues Kathy, whom he knocked off a horse in their first meeting, and yet she's somehow charmed by him and his early 90s witticisms, at the expense of her current jock boyfriend. The most infamous moment is when Johnny sneaks into Kathy's house early in the morning, lays down right next to her(!), and wakes her up with an ice cube.

In Written on the Wind, Lucy eventually falls in love with Kyle and marries him despite initially trying to get away from him several times.

Wish Upon: Paul, under the influence of the wish box, falls madly in love with Claire. So madly that he starts breaking into her house and taking photos of her while she sleeps.

Literature

In Ovid's The Metamorphoses (specifically the Daphne and Apollo chapter), Apollo tells Daphne that he chases her not as a foe, but from love (although she certainly didn't see it that way), making this trope at least Older Than Feudalism.

Fans of the Broadway Musical are also unaware (or at least dont acknowledge) that in the book while Christine does care for Erik and pity him, shes still horrified and disgusted by him and how he haunts her steps. In fact when faced with the prospect of marrying Erik in the book Christine literally bangs her head against the walls trying to kill herself, but she only succeeds in knocking herself out. The musical and other adaptations have made the relationship between Christine and the Phantom Lost in Translation, by glossing over the darker aspects and just how tormented Christine is by him.

Also in The Phantom of the Opera, Raoul's claim to Christine's love is that he's been obsessed with her since he met her when they were children, becomes jealous and possessive the moment he suspects she's seeing someone else (Note: that at this point he hasn't even spoken to her since they were teenagers). And then he waits in the darkness outside her dressing room so he can sneak inside and search for The Phantom. Christine does call him on this creepy behaviour and Raoul does eventually cool down by the end of the book. Christine also choose not to speak to him before since Erik was close by and murderously jealous of Raoul, so she was actually protecting him.

In Twilight, Edward Cullen starts out by flat-out stalking Bella and watching her as she sleeps. Does she mind? No. Even as he tells her how dangerous he is, she finds him more and more attractive, eventually allowing him to entirely isolate her from her old life and friends (even granted that she wasn't particularly happy with them to begin with, her sheer passivity can still come across as disturbing). Edward even lampshades this in the aborted prequel Midnight Sun, becoming disgusted with himself when he sneaks into Bella's window to watch her sleep and berating himself as a creepy stalker who should not be doing this. It doesn't stop him from going ahead and doing it anyway.Repeatedly. When he does finally confess that he has been watching her sleep, she is flattered. Yes, you read that right. She is flattered. By someone watching her sleep.

In the Kate Daniels novel Magic Strikes, Kate learns that Curran has been breaking into her apartment to watch her sleep (and eat her snacks). While she calls him a stalker to his face and threatens to call the cops on him, the shapeshifters consider this normal courtship behavior.

In Hush, Hush, Patch constantly stalks Nora. Her being flustered and bothered by this is treated like a Meet Cute, even though we later learn that he initially was stalking her to learn how best to murder her. We also later learn that he decided that he loved her during said stalking before they even met once.

This happens in the Twilight-ripoff Fifty Shades of Grey. The title character actually tracks Ana via her cellphone, which, in addition to being creepy, is kind of illegal.

In the same book, Grey also stalks Ana Steele across state lines when she goes to visit her mother in Savannah, Georgia. Ana calls it stalking, too; she's just unable to grasp that stalking is a bad thing.

In the second book of Song of the Lioness, Alanna explicitly calls George's behavior "stalking" while he's doing his Dogged Nice Guy routine, and in the third he has a couple of his spies follow her into the desert (where she is trying to get away from this and other complications of Corus). Although Alanna is annoyed with these things at the time, she eventually marries him. Tamora Pierce has since acknowledged this as a major case of Values Dissonance, as stalking was much less understood in the '80s, and even says it's the one thing about the franchise she'd like to go back and change.

Then The Immortals has Numair stealing a lock of Daine's hair without permission while she's suffering from a debilitating illness, which she doesn't mind at all since she suddenly realizes she's in love with him. It was actually so he'd have a way to magically track her if she went missing, but given the fact that Pierce had previously given us George and Alanna, many fans cried Unfortunate Implications. There's also the whole thing about her being 16 and him 30, and a teacher and student - which was why he initially rejected her, pointing to the age gap and his reputation (also, she was kind of concussed at the time).

The plot of a The Babysitters Club book featured the girls fearing the actions of a prank caller/prowler roaming the neighborhood. One night when two of the girls are sitting together, they're frightened by mysterious phone calls and noises outside. When one of the girls actually sees someone running away from the house at one point, she gets fed up and calls the police, who bring in one of her classmates. When she and the cops demand to know why he's been harassing her, he shyly admits that he was trying to work up the nerve to ask her out—and she accepts. This isn't Played for Laughs or made out to be adorable like so many other examples, this is flat-out creepy and scary behavior that still results in the guy getting the girl.

While he doesn't flat-out stalk her, Peeta Mellark admits to Katniss Everdeen during the 74th Hunger Games that he used to watch her walk home from school every day.

Live-Action TV

In 30 Rock this is played with. Jenna is upset after her creepy stalker loses interest in her — not because she loved him but because his obsession inflated her ego. Their "break up" is played for Does This Remind You of Anything?

Maynard: I don't think I can stalk you anymore. Jenna: No! You don't mean that!

Beverly Hills, 90210. Brandon's ex-girlfriend Emily stalks and harasses him after he breaks up with her—calling him repeatedly, following him, etc. When he finally gets fed up and blows up at her, she whines, "I can't help it, I love you."

In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel is a Deconstruction. He sees and falls in love with Buffy when she is fifteen. He expresses this love by stalking her for a year before revealing himself. In one sense, his devotion is played straight: Buffy herself is flattered to have the intense affection and protection of this Bad Boy. It is simultaneously denied: other characters, especially Buffy's male friends, think that his behavior is creepy and dangerous. They are justifiably suspicious of Buffy's vampire boyfriend and it takes Angel time to earn their trust.

In self-aware moments, Angel himself seems to understand that this behavior is unhealthy. A flashback shows the Monster Sob Story that was his existence before he met Buffy. He seems aware that stalking is not good, but it is better than what he was doing before. The series never Justifies it, only asks latitude for the Tortured Monster Angel is.

Stephen Colbert's character on The Colbert Report thinks this way about his cousin Charlene, as best exhibited in his song on the subject: I'm right behind you now, Charlene, waiting, watching, oh so close...

Usually averted in Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, which is a whole series deconstruction of Rom Com tropes, but played straight in season two when Josh realises that Rebecca has always been there for him and falls for her, despite all the creepy stuff she's done towards him. However, it's implied that he was just desperate to find a rebound relationship as he hates being single, and while they seem happy together at first, by the end of the season he has some very cold feet.

In Criminal Minds, "Crazy" Jane was nearly a murder victim of Frank Breitkopf, a sexual sadist and murderous sociopath. She gave him a compliment on his eyes and this caught him by surprise. He failed to properly torture and kill her like he had done before and let her go. Since then, he had been dropping by her house and let her gifts... made from the bones of his previous victims. Neither this nor the reason revealed behind his visits to her home town are enough to frighten her. In fact, when she saw him again, she ran towards him instead of away.

"Blink": Kathy gets sent back to 1920 by one of the Weeping Angels. Ben is the first person she meets; they later get married. Ben does have an interest in being curious and concerned about Kathy since she's clearly not from around the area and is quite distressed.

Kathy: Are you following me? Ben: Yeah. Kathy: Are you going to stop following me? Ben: No, I don't think so.

The Doctor: How did you meet? You and Reg, tell me how you met. Madge Arwell: He followed me home. I worked in the dairy, he always used to follow me home. He said he'd keep on following me until I married him! I didn't like to make a scene.

In the first season, Paul serves as a Deconstruction of The Dulcinea Effect, so while he is trying to save Echo, his actions come across as obsessive and weird at times, especially as he ignored a (seemingly) healthier romantic partner in Mellie. Eventually, Paul and Echo get together.

Alpha gets a bit of this, too, with a lot less subtlety. He's Axe-Crazy and obsessed with Echo, but in The Finale he's apparently reformed, and it's hinted he still loves her (though he would rather see her happy with Paul). So he apparently did really love her, despite his earlier psychotic actions.

Family Matters. Urkel's behavior towards Laura, even though it's played for laughs and seen as annoying even at its worst. Though a handful of incidents—his locker combination being equivalent to her measurements, him asking for a lock of her hair—leave her genuinely creeped out, by the end of the series, they're together. The Double Standard comes into play here also—his behavior is considered romantic and endearing, but Myra and Myrtle' s identical behavior towards him and Eddie, respectively, is portrayed as the craziness it truly is.

Chuck Bass does a lot of stalking of Blair on Gossip Girl. Though sometimes he leaves it up to his PIs to do the actual legwork.

"There's a fine line between surveillance and stalking." "Yeah, getting caught."

Dan ends up being Gossip Girl, running an intel scam that would make the Shadow Broker proud, all because he had the hots for Serena.

Heroes: West, toward Claire. He flew around outside her window (gee, can't imagine why). She is at first irritated but accepts him a little too easily. Then again, Claire has a lot of issues. And whether this is stalking in the romantic sense is debatable since he seemed to be doing this to find out if she has powers, not in order to see her naked.

Season 8 episode of How I Met Your Mother "PS: I Love You" explores this and Stalker with a Crush, and basically says the difference between being a stalker and being romantic is whether the stalkee is interested in the stalker.

Deconstructed on an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. When the detectives interview the business partner of a man they suspect of raping and murdering an assistant DA, she mentions that the man had sent her flowers the day after they met, presumably to entice her into going into business with him. Rather than seeing it as a sweet gesture, she admits that the fact that he knew her address scared the hell out of her.

In Oz, Ryan O'Reily gets his brother to murder Dr. Nathan's husband, forces kisses on her, kills her rapist to avenge her, and out-and-out stalks her. At first, Gloria isn't happy when she learns that Ryan had her husband killed, and initially suspects that O'Reily was the one who arranged for her to get raped after she rejected him. But after she learns Ryan had nothing to do with her rape and killed the guy who did attack her, her opinion of him starts to change. So it works (eventually), and she ends up falling in love with him. Though the show lampshades this as not being a very healthy relationship.

Mark from Peep Show goes to great lengths to win Sophie's heart during the first two seasons of the show. This includes hacking her personal email to keep tabs on their relationship, following her on dates and rushing up to the bus she's on to "bump into her". He eventually ends up marrying her, but they immediately file for divorce. He continues this type of behavior with Dobbie, even after she leaves him.

In Pushing Daisies Ned impersonates someone from a temp agency so he can get a job at the same place as his girlfriend Chuck. She says it's sweet. Emerson, watching them says "He's stalking you."

Displayed in the recurring Saturday Night Live skit "The Denise Show", in which a teenage boy obsesses over his ex-girlfriend and contrives ways to get her back. Despite the comedy setting, it's made clear that his behavior is wrong—his father yells at him about it, Denise herself repeatedly tells him to leave her alone, and another girlfriend dumps him because he can't get over her. By the final skit, he mentions that a restraining order has filed against him.

Sex and the City: Big's behavior towards Carrie after he's married someone else—constantly calling her, lurking outside her apartment waiting for her to come home, then continuing to lurk waiting for her boyfriend to leave, showing up uninvited and unannounced and only leaving when she tells him her boyfriend is coming back, following her to the hotel where she's staying, following her into the elevator and grabbing and kissing her repeatedly, telling her, "I love you". Throughout all this, she repeatedly and explicitly tells him to leave her alone and during the kissing scene, repeatedly pushes him away and tells him "Fuck you" (in other words, "No"), before finally responding to his kisses. The next shot is of them in bed. The Double Standard is glaring—throughout their on-again, off-again relationship, any pursuing behavior of Carrie's was viewed as pitiful and worthy of ridicule and ended with her being dumped, whereas Big's harassment and essentially forcing himself on her is portrayed as sexy and romantic and results in him getting her back.

To a lesser extent with Steve and Miranda. From the moment their one-night stand is over, she makes it clear that this is all she wants. He responds by constantly calling her, showing up at her placeat one point, threatening to make a scene if she doesn't let him inand overall, repeatedly ignoring her numerous requests that he leave her alone. This is never made out to be bad, despite Miranda's obvious annoyance with his persistence, just a case of the "Wild" guy trying to win over the "Uptight" woman and get her to let her defenses down.

Averted in Stargate SG-1, where the ascendedAncient Orlin falls in love with Samantha Carter on another planet and follows her home. Carter explicitly tells him he's stalking her and that what they have is not a "relationship". She eventually warms up to him (after he accepts her criticism and backs off) but never falls in love with him in return.

Used with a twist regarding Stefan. He stalked Elena for a while after he saved her from the car crash that killed her parents, but this was for the quite sensible reason of wanting to find out if she was really his psychotic presumed-dead ex Katherine, and why exactly the two looked so similar. He didn't find out why, but was satisfied that Elena was a very different person, and realising he was starting to fall for her decided to stop the stalking and meet her properly.

Elena's younger brother Jeremy is seemingly stalked by Anna, as they constantly bump into each other. Jeremy jokes about this ("Well, I kinda miss my daily dose of cute stalker chick.") but ultimately seems charmed by it. It later turns out that Anna was only using Jeremy to save her mother, but later ends up Becoming the Mask.

Justified in the second season of You. Joe, the stalking, murderous, panty-sniffing Villain Protagonist eventually has his stalker-tendencies revealed to his Love Interest Love... who turns out to be totally into that. However, it also turns out that not only has she known about his true nature for quite a while, but she manipulated their relationship in similar ways and even has a few murders under her belt as well. As it turns out, only a fellow stalker would find stalking romantic. Joe, however, is appalled by this revelation.

Music

"Stalker" by Goldfinger. Essentially, it's a guy that is being stalked by a woman he knows is totally insane (although nonviolent), but he falls in love with her anyway. In the last verse, she sends him a letter, saying that she's been arrested and sent to prison for going through his mail, and he's flattered that she says she'll keep tabs on him. It's Played for Laughs, though, and isn't half as creepy as some of the other examples on this list.

The music video for "Obsessed With You" by The Orion Experience plays this trope for laughs. The entire band constantly follows a girl around, the lead singers even get into bed with her. She eventually kicks them out, but gets lonely and invites them back in, happily singing along at the end of the video.

The music video for Michael Jackson's "The Way You Make Me Feel" features Jackson following some random woman around a city block, singing about how much he loves her, and performing lewd dance moves. Rather than being annoyed or creeped out by this behavior, the woman in question is amused and the video ends with them embracing.

Parodied and mercilessly lampooned in "Weird Al" Yankovic's Do I Creep You Out, in which the singer describes all the creepy things he's done in the name of "love", like digging the girl's gum out of the garbage can and carving her name into his leg with a knife. He gets arrested and sent to prison.

Pro Wrestling

In TNA, Brittany stalked Samuel Shaw, who had repeatedly said he was not interested in her. She persisted though and eventually, he did fall in love with her.

Puppet Shows

Used in-universe in Mongrels episode "Nelson and the Human". While Neil's pursuit of a woman is clearly obsessive stalking, Nelson sees it as romantic and tries to come up with a scheme to get the two lovebirds together. In the end Neil shoots the woman and her boyfriend, then himself.

Theatre

In My Fair Lady, Freddy sends Eliza love letters every day and spends all his spare time hanging around in the street outside her house — at one point, she finds him out there at three in the morning. It's played for laughs, and Freddy is characterized as so ineffectual that he could never actually do anything, for good or ill. Eliza isn't especially impressed by his behavior, but she also isn't put off by it and seriously considers him as a possible marriage candidate.

Video Games

In Neverwinter Nights 2, Elanee reveals that she was assigned by the druid circle of Merdelain to watch over your character, from birth (the story timeline was designed assuming a human character). Depending on your character's reaction, a male character can either play this trope straight or play it more realistically. In a variation, this seems to be a case of her falling in love with you while stalking, not stalking because of love.

In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the artificially intelligent computer, TEC-XX, expresses to Princess Peach (at the time, TEC's master's captive) that he has been overcome by strange feelings that compel him to continuously observe and eavesdrop on Peach. Peach's logical conclusion is that TEC is in love. Let's not forget that TEC first experienced these "strange feelings" when he observed her taking a shower.

The Everything Wrong With series on CinemaSins has, among its many repeated jokes, that 'this movie suggests that stalking is an easy way to get girls to love you when I can personally vouch that this isn't true in real life'.

Averted / Played with in Total Drama World Tour — Cody does not appreciate Sierra's torturous obsession with him for most of the season, but is generally touched when she remembers his birthday when not evenhedid. Finally having him return her affection seems to prompt her to tone herself down. Somewhat, at least. Funny, he had no problem with stalking Gwen. Then, when the roles get reversed, he's a bad guy

Wal-Mart once sold a men's shirt with "Some call it stalking, I call it 'love'" printed on it. In a red font. That looked like dripping blood. Cute.

Gavin DeBecker's book The Gift of Fear discusses this trope at length, with many examples of how the media not only often portrays stalking in a romantic or humourous light, but the Double Standard that usually comes with it—when a man acts like this, it's romantic and he gets the girl he's been chasing. When a woman does, it's pathetic at best and dangerous at worst and she is always appropriately punished, whether it be being dumped, humiliated, or even killed.

An article on a study by a University of Michigan doctoral student shows that romantic movies and TV shows can indeed distort how the public views stalking.

Erotomania is a form of this, as discussed in the book I Know You Really Love Me. Typically the affected person believes that a secret admirer, usually a stranger, high-status individual, or celebrity, is sending secret signals of affection through significant glances or telepathy. The patient then returns this perceived affection with a flood of gifts and notes, believing that any denial of the relationship is a ploy to conceal their forbidden love from the rest of the world.

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